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King Arthur and Drumchapel.
Was King Arthur connected with Drumchapel?
Duncan Robertson's book: Drumchapel - A Historical Sketch, Chapter 1, Page 1,
states:
"Of
the aforementioned drums, the western one is Drumry, said to signify the King's
Ridge, behind which name there lies a world of unrecorded history. Of some old
Celto-British chief who made his settlement upon its crest, while, as the recent
excavations would seem to imply, to the days when the white-robed Druids,
standing by their altars in their temples and groves, practiced their mysterious
rites and imposed their cult upon the primitive hunters who peopled Strathclyde
in these far distant days."
John Bruce, in his History of the Parish of West or Old
Kilpatrick states: "It was during these struggles that the great Cymric hero,
Arthur the Faultless, King of the Poets, first saw the light. Gildas in the 6th
Century, and Nennius in the 7th, relate the real Arthur's history; while Merlin,
the poet of Tweedsdale, and Llywarch Hen and Taliesin, both poets of Lennox,
sing his praises. It has been thought that one of the battles of Arthur was
fought in the neighbourhood of Duntocher, certainly in the neighbouring parish
of Strathblane, where 'Arthur's stone' bears witness to one of his victories."
The History of Dumbartonshire by Joseph Irving also mentions King Arthur.
Mentioning that Al Cluith (Dumbarton) was the base of King Arthur, he goes on to
explain Al Cluith "appears to have borne the name 'Castrum Arthuri'. In a
Parliamentary record of the reign of David II, giving a curious detail of the
king's rents and profits in Dumbartonshire, mention is made of the
'redditum
assize Castri Arthuri' and, as a further evidence of the presence of Arthur in
ancient Dumbarton, in the Welsh Triads, as quoted by Owen in his Dictionary, it
is said 'Arthur ynbeneteyrnedd yn Mhenryn Rhionydd yn y gogledd' Arthur, a
supreme of princes at the promontory of Rhionyth, in the north.
Other Welsh
writers describe the residence of King Arthur in Strathclyde as Penryn Ryoneth.
The point of Cardross was the 'Rhyn-Ryoneth',
and the Castle of Dumbarton the Pen-Rhyn-Ryoneth of the ancient British Triads."
Confirming this, the Welsh Traiads say that St. Mungo (Kentigern) - based in
Glasgow - was King Arthur's chief bishop at his base of Pen Rhionydd; obviously
then, the capital Dumbarton.
The assertion of Castrum Arthuri is backed up by George MacGregor's The History
of Glasgow. Of Strathclyde kings, he writes: "The first mentioned ruler is Cawn
or Caw, who is said to have been driven from his kingdom at the end of the fifth
century by the Picts, and who took refuge in the kindred principality of Wales.
At the commencement of the sixth century, Hoel, Coyle or Huail, became king; but
his reign was no more fortunate than that of his predecessor. Tradition has it
that the great King Arthur, whose exploits have been the subject of the works of
many quasi-historians and minstrels, obliged Hoel to seek refuge in Anglesey,
where he died in 508. Arthur, on the same authority, established himself firmly
in Strathclyde, fixing upon Alclywd as one of his fortresses. This place, some
say, was then called Castrum Arthuri; while Stirling Castle is affirmed to be
his 'round table'. Here he reigned from 508 till his death in 542."
Caw and Hueil are said to have been father and son, and seem to have been minor kings
opposed to Arthur, the Ard Righ (High King). Arthur is said to have killed both
Caw and his sons in battle. The sons died first, not in Wales, but at Cambuslang,
a site associated with Nennius' sixth battle of his list of Arthur's twelve
victories. When Caw was later defeated he was buried alongside his sons. Another
of Caw's sons was reputedly Gildas whom pointedly does not mention Arthur or the
High Kingship, an office he would detest. Instead, he denounces Constantine of
Damnonia (Strathclyde) as killing royal youths.and their guardians on the site
of a church, while wearing the habit of a holy abbot. Cambuslang held an early
church supposedly visited by both St.Cadoc and Gildas.
I.M.M. MacPhail's Dumbarton Castle suggests that Dumbarton as
Arthur's Castle is a misreading, but then goes on to list Arthurian traditions
in the area. He makes reference to the possibility of Arthur having fought
locally: "at least one of them was fought not far from Dumbarton, in Glen
Douglas on Lochlomondside.". He also notes the Campbell clan's belief in their
descent from King Arthur: "In a seventeenth century account, based on centuries
old tradition, of the genealogy of the Campbells, the author traces their
descent from 'King Arthur of the round table', whose son Smerevie Mor, was born
in Dumbarton, 'on the south side thereof, in a place called the redd hall or in
Irish Tour in Talla Dherig, that is, the tower of the redd hall'.
The name, 'the Red Hall', occurs in other Gaelic folk tales as that of Arthur's
residence. MacPhail also asserts that "'the Tower of the Red Hall' has a
historical connection with Dumbarton Rock. One of the buildings of the medieval
castle in Dumbarton Rock was the Red Tower, which was repaired in 1460." This
leads him to the connection of King Arthur and the Galbraith clan.
James Knight in his Glasgow and Strathclyde claims:
"Careful research seems to show, however, that when we trace the Arthurian
legends back to their origins we arrive at a real historical person, not a king,
but the head of a British federation in Strathclyde, in the century after Ninian.
His enemies were the heathen Scots on the west, the Picts on the north, and the
Angles on the east, and against these he fought and won twelve battles, the
sites of which have all been identified in lowland Scotland. As the result of a
victory at Bowden Hill, West Lothian, in 516, he divided the conquered territory
among three brothers. To Urien was assigned Reged or northern Stathclyde, Arawn
held Yscotland beyond the wall as far as Stirling, and Llew or Loth, King of the
Picts, Arthur's brother-in-law and ally, ruled over the eastern territory on the
Firth of Forth, now called Lothian. Loth was the father of Thenaw, whose name
survives in Tannochside and St. Enoch's, Glasgow, and she was the mother of
Kentigern or Mungo, the real founder of Glasgow and its patron saint, of whom
more will be said by-and-by. For twenty years after this victory the land had
rest, but in 537 a fresh pagan combination was formed under Modred, Arthur's
nephew, and at Camelon, near Falkirk, a great battle was fought in which both
leaders fell, and which overwhelmed Christianity in Scotland for a whole
generation."
Early national history books also back the Strathclyde claim. James Taylor in
his Pictorial History of Scotland writes:
"Among the petty chiefs who reigned
over Strathclyde, there are none whose names or exploits are worthy of
preservation , with the single exception of the famous King Arthur. At the
commencement of the sixth century, this semi-fabulous monarch was chosen pendragon, or chief military leader of the Cumbrian Britons, expelled his
sovereign, the feeble Huail of Hoel, and reigned over Strathclyde from A.D. 508
to A.D. 542, when he was killed in the fatal battle of Camlan. The fame of his
deeds of valour has been perpetuated both by the romances of the poets and the
tales of tradition, while his obscure successors, continually occupied either in
civil broils or foreign conflicts, have engaged neither poet or chronicler to
transmit their deeds to more inquisitive times."
Arthurian Legend is varied and somewhat contradictory. For that reason is it
interesting to work with sources from around the 6th
Century. Most of what people ascribe to Arthurian legend today comes from
Geoffrey of Monmouth, a 12th Century writer who embellished and introduced
various strands of the Arthurian story. He was most keen on placing
Arthur firmly in Wales, perhaps understandably as poems such as that of
Taliesin
and Y Gododdin were written in Welsh. Yet, in the 6th Century, most of southern
and central Scotland spoke Welsh; the poem Y Gododdin describes a battle of the
Votadini, based in Edinburgh.
Y Gododdin
This is one of the most important sources because it is the first to mention
Arthur by name. It was written c. 600 AD by the poet Aneurin, describing a
failed battle against the Angles at Catterick. Describing one warrior:
He struck before the three hundred bravest
He would slay both middle and flank
He was suited to the forefront of a most generous host
He would give gifts from a herd of horses in winter
He would feed black ravens on the wall
Of a fortress, though he were not Arthur
This is the earliest piece of vernacular writing in Europe, and it was written
in Edinburgh. The Votadini were allied with the Damnonii of Strathclyde as both
kingdoms were under threat from the Picts and Angles. It was Arthur who gave
these kingdoms respite from their attacks, traditionally winning twelve battles
(according to Nennius) and thus was celebrated by both peoples. The poem also
mentions the Lord of Dumbarton:
He rose early in the morning
when the centurions hasten in the mustering of the army
following from one advanced position to another.
At the front of the hundred men he was first to kill.
As great was his craving for corpses
As for drinking mead or wine
It was with utter hatred
that the Lord of Dumbarton, the laughing fighter,
used to kill the enemy.
Merlin
One of the more reliable conjectures in Arthurian legend is that Merlin was a
druid and poet who was given protection by Ryderrch -a King of Strathclyde; the
kingdom based in Alt Cluith or Dumbarton- and was based near the 'Waters of
Clyde'. Thus we have a druid based in the area - and at the Knapper's site,
evidence of a henge. Furthermore, King Ryderrch was said to have his Royal
Palace at Pertnech (Partick). The Drumchapel henge is situated midway from
Ryderrch's Palace at Partick and the British capital of Alt Cluith (Dumbarton)
making it ideally located for a druid wishing Royal protection. It is also close
to the military way of the Antonine Wall which would have been the main road of
the country at the time, thus giving ease of movement right across the country.
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Drumchapel
